A real estate office needs the phone answered by someone who sounds like they work there, can put a showing on the right agent's calendar, and does not go home at five. There are three ways to buy that. Here is what each one costs per month and per answered call, with the vendor numbers read from public pricing pages.
Key takeaways
- An in-house receptionist costs 30,000 to 40,000 dollars a year before benefits and covers 40 hours a week. A part-time desk is around 3,000 dollars a month.
- Human virtual receptionist services price per call: Smith.ai runs 300 dollars a month for 30 calls to 2,100 for 300, as of August 2026.
- AI receptionists start between 25 and 49 dollars a month and answer nights and weekends at no premium. callflo.ai is 39 dollars a month on annual billing with 120 minutes.
- Per answered call the three options differ by roughly an order of magnitude at each step. The right answer for most offices is a mix.
Three ways to staff the phone
Hire a person, rent a person by the call, or run software. Each one answers a different question. The hire gives you someone in the office who also greets walk-ins and handles the mail. The virtual service gives you professional voices without the payroll. The AI gives you the phone answered every hour of the week for the price of a lunch. What follows is the arithmetic for each, then the comparison per answered call, because that is the number that decides.
An in-house receptionist
Add employer taxes, benefits if you offer them, a desk, a computer, and the weeks of training before they know which agent handles which farm area. Then note what you do not get: anything after 5pm, weekends, lunch, sick days, or the second caller when the first one is on the line. For a brokerage with walk-in traffic and a front door, the hire earns its keep on the door. For the phone alone, it is the most expensive hour of coverage on this page. The AI vs human receptionist post does that math hour by hour with the BLS wage.
A human virtual receptionist
Services like Smith.ai staff your line with trained receptionists around the clock, working from your script. As of August 2026 the published plans run 300 dollars a month for 30 calls, 810 for 90, and 2,100 for 300, with appointment booking and payment collection as per-call add-ons. Real people handle the unusual call well: the seller who wants to talk about their late mother's house, the buyer who is angry about a fallen-through deal. The constraint is the meter. Every call is billable, including the wrong numbers, the vendors, and the 45-second "is the open house still on" call. The full comparison with Smith.ai works through when the human price is worth paying.
Answering service pricing models: per minute, per call, flat fee, pay as you go
Human answering services sell the same thing on four different meters, and the meter decides the bill more than the headline price does. The AI receptionist vs answering service cost post runs the same 100 calls through each one. As of September 2026, read from each vendor's pricing page:
| Model | How it bills | Example | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per minute | A bundle of minutes, overage per minute | PATLive: $349 for 200 minutes, $1.99 a minute after | How a minute is counted: rounded up, 6-second steps, or by the second |
| Per call | A bundle of calls, overage per call | Smith.ai: $300 for 30 calls, $11.50 a call after | Short calls cost the same as long ones; ask which calls are free |
| Pay as you go | A small monthly base plus every minute used | AnswerFirst: $30 a month plus $1.60 to $1.95 a minute | Cheapest at low volume, most expensive at high volume |
| Flat fee | One monthly price for a call or minute allowance, sometimes unlimited | Varies; most flat-rate services quote on request | The fair-use limit and what happens past it |
| AI receptionist (callflo.ai) | Minutes included, overage per minute | $39 a month annual for 120 minutes, $0.98 a minute after | Overage adds up past the included minutes on a busy line |
The cheapest model is the one that matches your call pattern. A quiet line with a few long calls suits pay per call; a busy line with many short calls suits a minute bundle; a line you cannot predict suits pay as you go until you know your numbers. The PATLive, Smith.ai and AnswerFirst pages have the full ladders.
An AI receptionist
An AI receptionist answers in one ring, at any hour, including three callers at once, and follows your qualifying questions on every call. It books showings to the agent's calendar, texts a summary before the call ends, and transfers live when your rules say so. Entry pricing as of August 2026: Upfirst at 24.95 dollars a month for 30 calls, callflo.ai at 39 dollars a month on annual billing for 120 minutes, Rosie at 49 dollars for 250 minutes. Beyond the entry tier, callflo.ai's VIP plan at 697 dollars a month on annual billing includes 1,000 minutes and a team that builds, tunes, and runs the agent for you, which is the closest thing on this page to a hire that never sleeps.
The one thing to watch is the unit. Some services meter calls, others meter minutes. The five-service comparison for agents goes plan by plan, and the six-service comparison adds the human vendors at 100 calls.
Cost per answered call
Take an office that gets 100 inbound calls a month averaging three minutes. Rough numbers, but the ratios hold at most volumes.
| Option | Monthly cost at 100 calls | Per answered call | Answers at 8pm and Sunday | Books to calendar | Takes payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part-time in-house desk | $3,000 and up | About $30 | No | Yes | Sometimes |
| Smith.ai (human, 90-call plan plus overage) | About $900 | About $9 before add-ons | Yes | Add-on per call | Add-on per call |
| Rosie (250 minutes) | $49 | About $0.50 | Yes | On the $149 plan | Not published |
| callflo.ai Starter (120 min plus overage) | About $215 | About $2.15 | Yes | Yes | Yes, via Stripe |
| callflo.ai VIP (1,000 min, run for you) | $697 | About $7, with a team managing it | Yes | Yes | Yes, via Stripe |
Two honest notes on that table. At 300 minutes a month, callflo.ai Starter is past its included minutes and the overage at 0.98 dollars a minute is what you are paying for; Rosie gives more self-serve minutes per dollar at that volume. And the VIP row is not really a software price. It is a managed service with a team reading your transcripts, priced against the human services, not against Rosie.
Which one fits your office
- Brokerage with a front door and walk-ins: keep the desk for office hours, add AI for overflow, nights, and weekends. The desk stops being the only thing between a caller and voicemail.
- Solo agent or small team, no office: AI on conditional forwarding from your cell. You still answer when you can; it answers when you are in a showing.
- Team that wants it handled, not configured: callflo.ai VIP, or a human service if your callers specifically need a person and the per-call math works at your volume.
- Any office that takes deposits or fees by phone: the on-call payment column narrows the list to one AI option and the human services with the add-on.